Avengers Endgame did Steve Rogers’s Character Dirty

On a chilly Friday night, my best friend and I drove to our local movie theater and settled into the plush seats with our arms full of snacks. We anxiously sat through previews until the lights dimmed, and Avengers Endgame started to play. 

Now, I’ll admit, there was a lot of cheering that night. But there were a lot of tears too. We sobbed as we watched our favorite characters die. We screamed with glee when Steve Rogers lifted Thor’s hammer like we’d known was possible since Avengers: Age of Ultron but wasn’t proven until that moment. We laughed along at the jokes and one liners. We sat in stunned silence as the credits rolled by. We absolutely loved the movie while we sat in that theater.

But after we left the theater, reality began to sink in. 

For as good as the movie was in the moment, there were a lot of things that felt off when it ended. 

You see, for eight years, we’d been watching Chris Evans play Steve Rogers (AKA Captain America) on the big screen. For the entire Captain America trilogy, his character always had the same goal: to protect his best friend Bucky barnes.

In Captain America: The First Avenger Steve defied orders to go on a suicide mission in the hopes of saving a captured Bucky Barnes. He succeeded and together they marched over 200 POWs to safety. They spent the next couple years during World War II fighting side by side. Ultimately, Bucky Barnes fell off a train on the side of a mountain and was rightfully presumed dead. Steve was devastated after the loss of his best friend. And a few months later he crashed a plane in the arctic and was frozen for the next 70 years until he was found and thawed out.

In Captain America: The Winter Soldier Steve discovered Bucky had been alive the entire time and tortured into forgetting his past. Tthen Bucky was forced to become a Hydra (Nazi) killing machine. Though Steve’s main goal of the movie was to stop Hydra, his other goal was to keep Bucky alive. Even though Bucky had been tortured and brainwashed by the very people Steve was up against, he still wanted to save his best friend. He needed to save his best friend. In the end, he refused to kill Bucky, letting Bucky beat the crap out of him. Bucky disappeared after that, but Steve made a promise to himself to find him again.

In Captain America: Civil War Steve defied the governments of every country in the United Nations to help Bucky after finding him. Steve became a fugitive to protect his best friend. He fought his fellow avengers, starting a civil war within a group of heroes, all for Bucky. Well, okay there was that whole thing about the government wanting heroes to be registered and Steve disagreeing too, but the main motivations behind all of Steve’s actions were Bucky Barnes. 

Then Avengers Endgame happened.

See, in this movie Steve’s goal was to bring back all the people who’d died five years prior–including Bucky–and he accomplished that. Against all odds, the Avengers were able to reverse what happened in the previous movie. They lost Natasha (Black Widow) and Tony (Iron Man) in the process, but they prevailed. But what upsets me the most, is what happens in the last 10 or 15 minutes of the movie. As I said before, Steve Rogers’s goal throughout his entire trilogy was to save Bucky Barnes. At the end of Avengers: Endgame Steve ends up going to the past and staying there. He leaves everything about his current life behind! Including Bucky!

For a man who spent his entire series trying to protect and help his best friend, only to then leave that best friend behind, is blasphemous! It’s outrageous. It goes against everything that his character stood for. The directors took a great character and destroyed him. 

For that, I will always be upset.